Press

General construction work has begun at the Akkuyu nuclear power plant site in Turkey. It is a positive sign that reactor construction will indeed commence in 2018 - putting Turkey on track to be the next new country to introduce nuclear energy into its mix after the UAE and Belarus.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Nuclear Association have agreed formalised practical arrangements for cooperation between them on nuclear energy, nuclear power plant life cycle and the fuel cycle.

World Nuclear Association Director General Agneta Rising today called on governments, expert bodies and the nuclear industry to do more to ensure that nuclear energy can make the full contribution that society requires to meet its future clean energy needs.

On 16 August half of Taiwan was affected by a blackout – some 6.6 million households and businesses – after an unplanned shutdown at a gas plant took the country’s fragile electricity system over the edge. Yet the government is standing by its policy of phasing out nuclear by 2025 and using existing reactors as little as possible.

More than 9 GWe of new nuclear capacity came online in 2016, the largest annual increase for over 25 years and global nuclear generation rose for the fourth successive year. However, if nuclear is going to make a full contribution to future clean electricity supply, action is needed in three key areas: establishing a level playing field in electricity markets; building harmonized regulatory processes; and creating an effective safety paradigm.

These are the conclusions of the World Nuclear Performance Report 2017, which is published today.

Although peak generation from solar briefly exceeded generation from nuclear energy on 26 May 2017 in the UK, over the whole day nuclear generated considerably more low carbon electricity. Expanding nuclear offers greater potential for emissions savings.

Lloyds Register have today published their latest Technology Radar report, A Nuclear Perspective. The report concludes that nuclear power generation technologies are now cost competitive with fossil fuels and innovation is gathering pace.

The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine has launched a target programme for scientific research, Nuclear and Radiation Technologies for the Energy Sector and Social Needs for 2019-2023. The resolution was adopted on 16 January, following a meeting of the presidium of the institution, chaired by its president, Boris Paton.

Russia and Serbia have signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in nuclear energy and a joint statement on strategic partnership for the construction of a centre of nuclear science, technology and innovation.

Horizon Nuclear Power today outlined the procedure it will follow now that its new-build projects have been suspended. The UK subsidiary of Japan’s Hitachi said it had made substantial progress with its plans to provide at least 5.4 GWe of new capacity across two sites - Wylfa Newydd and Oldbury-on-Severn.

A permit for the expansion of the existing SFR repository for low- and intermediate-level waste should be granted under the Sweden's Environmental Code, the country's Radiation Safety Authority has recommended to the Land and Environment Court in Stockholm.

Berkeley, California-based private company Deep Isolation has successfully placed and then retrieved a prototype nuclear waste canister hundreds of metres underground via a borehole, in a test the company described as the first of its kind.

The Advancing Nuclear Medicine consortium, led by the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group, has been awarded a EUR6.8 million (USD7.7 million) subsidy to develop FIELD-LAB. This Dutch initiative is aimed at accelerating the development and introduction of new radiopharmaceuticals.

Greg Clark, the UK's secretary of state for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, today spoke “candidly” about the unprecedented financial terms offered to Hitachi ahead of the company’s decision to suspend its new nuclear power plant project.

Bipartisan legislation modernising US nuclear regulation and supporting the establishment of a licensing framework for next-generation advanced reactors has been signed by US President Donald Trump. The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernisation Act became law on 14 January.

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power has contracted L3 MAPPS to repurpose the full-scope simulator for unit 1 of its Wolsong nuclear power plant for training operators at Wolsong unit 3. Wolsong 1 is scheduled to be shut down by 2022.

The Lost Creek in situ leach uranium project has produced a cumulative 2.7 million pounds U3O8 (1039 tU) since beginning operations in 2013 and could ramp up within six months, Ur-Energy said yesterday. Meanwhile, Uranium Energy Corp has announced a new consolidated mineral resource estimate for the Reno Creek project.

A joint feasibility study on the deployment of NuScale's small modular reactor in Jordan will be carried out through a memorandum of understanding signed between NuScale Power and the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently held its School of Nuclear Knowledge Management course in the Central American and Caribbean region for the first time. The event was held in Costa Rica on 3-7 December.

Delivering the deal negotiated with the European Union "remains the government's top priority", the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in an update on EU exit preparations on 11 January.

A panel set up as a forum to provide community input into matters related to the decommissioning of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant has recommended that the two-unit plant be decommissioned within ten years of its 2025 shutdown.

NuScale Power and Ultra Electronics Energy have unveiled a new safety display and indication system for NuScale's small modular reactor which they say is the first application of field programmable gate array technology for real-time display and monitoring in the US commercial nuclear industry.

Anfield Energy has signed an agreement to acquire the Charlie in situ leach uranium project in Wyoming from Cotter Corporation, plus the West Slope group of previously producing uranium/vanadium properties in Colorado.

Unit 2 of the Haiyang nuclear power plant in China's Shandong province has completed 168 hours of full-power continuous operation and is now deemed to be in commercial operation. It becomes the fourth AP1000 unit in China to reach the milestone.

Westinghouse, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last August, has announced initial organisational changes aimed at enhancing focus on its customer base and strengthening its global services and supply chain management capabilities.

The US Department of Energy has announced plans to award a contract to a subsidiary of Centrus Energy Corp to demonstrate the production of high-assay low enriched uranium. The project will see the deployment of a cascade of 16 AC-100M centrifuges at Piketon, Ohio.

All the main equipment has now been installed at the first of two demonstration Hualong One units under construction at the Fuqing site in China's Fujian province. Installation of the steam generators has begun at the second unit.

India currently expects to bring 21 new nuclear power reactors with a combined generating capacity of 15,700 MWe into operation by 2031, the country's minister of state for the Department of Atomic Energy and the Prime Minister's Office told parliament yesterday.

There is growing interest in nuclear power across several African countries. The USA could be more engaged to create more equitable and sustainable deployment of clean nuclear power on the African continent, write Jessica Lovering and Kenton de Kirby of the Breakthrough Institute.